People’s reaction to seeing a 1911 carried cocked and locked range from understanding to outright horror. I cannot tell you how many people on our social media pages lose their cool when they see a 1911 in holster cocked and locked. Kevin Michalowski gets a ton of emails about this, too!
That’s the way John Moses Browning designed it. A striker fired gun is essentially cocked once a round is chambered. With modern 1911’s, the safety is one, of many. They have a grip safety, and most have either a trigger block, or a transfer bar. Perfectly safe to carry cocked and locked.
Wellll… technically only SOME striker fired guns are cocked when you put a round in the chamber. The Springfield XD and FN FiveseveN fall into this category. The Glock and Kahr arms pistols have actions that do not become fully cocked until the trigger is pulled fully to the rear. So, some striker fired guns are technically single actions (with other internal safeties to make them drop-safe) and some are actually, kinda-sorta DAO pistols. Leave it to the engineers and lawyers to make sure nothing is ever simple.
Always carry cocked and locked with a single action however my double actions are carried hammer down. I like a full trigger pull on the first shot for safety.
If you ever need to be left alone at a range full of gun nuts, you can just blurt out “so, is a striker fired more like a SA or a DA?” Just participate in the conversation for like 2 min to get people thinking and debating, then slowly fade out. They’ll still be talking after you’re done shooting.
“Cocked & Locked” aka Condition One is the only way to carry a 1911 for self-defense purposes. It is very safe, as there are the frame and grip safeties to deactivate before the 1911 can be fired. Some people will advocate for Condition Two or “Israeli Carry” where the safety is off, hammer down and no round chambered, but that requires even more time and training to be proficient at, and there are more things that could go wrong than with Condition One (failure to feed, etc.).
My every day carry is a Glock 30. I always have one in the pipe plus 10 and 10 more on my side. There are great videos on u tube of people who’s lives have been save by having on in the pipe.
I will admit to some trepidation to cocked and locked in my early hand gun days. I started with wheel guns and in the “old” days if you dropped one on a full hole the gun could go off. That mindset caused some of us to leave one hole open. That condition transferred mentally to the old 1911 when I got my first one. I finally overcame that fear and went with cocked and locked. I had the same fear with my first striker fired pistols but that was back in the Saturday night special days. Once I learned how the new guns worked there is always one in the pipe. If you ever have to use a gun in self defense a tick of the sweep hand can mean the difference between life and death.
Good points! I think you highlight the angst we old timers had back in the day. I really had to educate myself on the safety mechanisms of modern firearms before I could let go of my old concerns. You can teach an old dog new tricks.
When I carry my 1911 I carry it cocked n locked. And when I carry my LC9s I also carry it one in chamber and safety off. And have had no problems. Once I was in a Burger king and a customer told me that my 1911 was cocked. And I told him that it was the normal way to carry a 1911. And he said that he never knew it and thanked me for the info.
When I carry my 1911 or my CZ-75B, either will be cocked and locked. Now I need to find a Hi-Power to complete my dream trifecta of cocked and lockables.
Yes, cocked n locked and/or Glocked. Only way to carry. Too much chance of the bad guy shooting you first or grabbing your gun away from you if you don’t carry a round in the chamber and are ready to go.
A 1911 is safe to carry condition 1. Cocked and locked, is the only real option, unless you do not chamber a round which slows your response time down, or you risk lowering the hammer on a chambered round and then home it does not fall and discharge.
Far too many today are not as familiar with the 1911, the Browning Hi-Power, or any of the firearms with external safeties, as the advent of ‘striker’ fired firearms has changed what is commonly carried.
Sure, there is still a large number of people, mostly older but some younger, who like and carry the 1911, it is just less and less seem to like the SA semi-auto handguns.
I have seen several comments that say they do not like the external safety, or they prefer the Glock or any type similar to the Glock. (I do have to chuckle when I think of a Glock, we … {those of us who worked in a field dealing with firearms, Intelligence, and foreign affairs} laughed at the Glock in the early 80s. It turns out the Glock has the last laugh).
